March 3 (Reuters) - Generic drugmaker Akorn Inc forecast 2014 adjusted earnings below analysts' average estimate and said it had asked for permission to delay filing its annual report due to a potential material weaknesses in its financial reporting controls. The company's shares fell as much as 18 percent in early trade on Monday. Akorn said it expects adjusted earnings of 76-79 cents per share for 2014, while analysts on average were expecting 85 cents...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's leaders could re-think Hong Kong's autonomy if tensions in the Asian financial hub reached a level that threatened national security, one of the city's leading pro-Beijing figures has warned. Jasper Tsang, president of Hong Kong's Legislative Council, told the South China Morning Post that failure to strike a deal over the leadership election in 2017 would deal a blow to confidence in the "one country, two systems" formula under...

By Katharina Bart GRENCHEN, Switzerland, March 6 (Reuters) - Swatch has published a version of its annual report in the Swiss-German dialect for which there is no standard written form, the latest act of rebellion from the watchmaker which has long enjoyed provoking the Swiss business establishment. The move to publish in dialect rather than standard German - one of Switzerland's four official languages including French and Italian in which the report was...

By Emily Stephenson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - BlackRock pushed back on Thursday against a U.S. report that raised concerns about asset managers and securities lending, arguing in a paper sent to regulators that its activities do not pose outsized risks. At issue are transactions in which entities lend stocks and bonds in exchange for cash or other collateral. Mutual funds often lend securities to hedge funds to generate extra income, for example. Some banks...

McKesson Corp. shareholders are the nation's first to test a new version of the theory that less is more. The company's annual report, in the mail this month, is shorter than usual, with the amount of financial data trimmed by about a third. Corporate executives, convinced that most shareholders are intimidated or bored by page after page of financial information, have been looking for years for a way to simplify their annual reports without running afoul of the Securities and Exchange...

By David Adams MIAMI (Reuters) - Two U.S. groups critical of the government's counter-terrorism policies have asked the Obama administration to release information about four Miami exiles arrested last month in Cuba and accused of planning armed attacks against the island. The groups filed joint Freedom of Information Act requests this week asking the FBI, CIA and State Department for any information they have on the four men, as well as records relating to...

Navistar International Corp., citing still-unresolved issues with its outside auditor, said it missed Tuesday's deadline for filing its annual report with regulators for its fiscal year ended Oct. 31. The Warrenville-based truck manufacturer's disclosure didn't come as a complete surprise: In mid-December, Navistar's top officials had been scheduled to deliver the company's annual presentation to stock analysts in New York but canceled at the...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Inflation in the euro zone will likely stay "significantly" below the European Central Bank's target this year and next, ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said in the Austrian National Bank's annual report. "But over the medium term it is likely to align itself with the ECB's objective of keeping inflation below but close to 2 percent," he added in the report released on Tuesday. He said an economic recovery in the euro zone - and...

Hollinger International Inc., which owns the Chicago Sun-Times, said Wednesday that it has delayed filing its 2003 annual report and may be delisted by the New York Stock Exchange. The Chicago-based company said it plans to file the annual report and quarterly reports for 2004 by mid-January, pushing back an end-of-year deadline. The company's auditor is reviewing the documents. The New York Stock Exchange has told Hollinger International that the annual report has to be filed by Thursday, and...

PARIS (Reuters) - The French central bank said on Friday it was closely monitoring risks related to a U.S. probe of BNP Paribas which may cost France's biggest listed bank a multi-billion dollar fine and its reputation in one its growth markets. BNP Paribas said last month it faced U.S. fines in excess of $1.1 billion in the case over alleged dealings with countries subject to sanctions. Though BNP has declined to provide a specific number, U.S. authorities are...

Lake County residents who want to learn more about the county's law enforcement apparatus can pick up a free copy of the new Lake County Sheriff's Office annual report. The report features descriptions of the various departments in the sheriff's office, along with photographs and telephone numbers of key personnel. The office employs more than 300 deputies, about half of whom are assigned to patrol duties. The other half maintain security at the Lake County Courthouse and the...

By Belinda Goldsmith LONDON (Reuters) - British state broadcaster, the BBC, has rebuked presenter Jeremy Clarkson over using racist language while filming car show "Top Gear", one of the most popular and profitable TV programs in the world, but dismissed calls for his resignation. Clarkson, 54, apologized after a newspaper report earlier this week revealed he used an epithet for blacks while reciting the rhyme "Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe" to choose between cars while...

Navistar International Corp. has suspended employee purchases of company shares through 401(k) and other programs because it failed to file an annual report on time. The Warrenville-based company informed employees and executives of the stock-purchase blackout Thursday, it said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The blackout period began Thursday at 4 p.m. and will end on the day the company files its annual report for the fiscal year that...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Reported sexual assaults in the U.S. military jumped 50 percent last year, the Pentagon said on Thursday, and officials welcomed the spike as a sign that a high-level crackdown has made victims more confident their attackers will be prosecuted. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the jump in reported sexual assaults to 5,061 in the 2013 fiscal year from 3,374 the previous year, was "unprecedented. " He announced six new directives to expand...

Jobs in corporate, research and retail sectors multiplied at a brisk pace in 1998, although industrial development expanded less quickly, according to the Aurora Economic Development Commission annual report. "The big story for 1998 was a big increase in corporate office and research facilities . . . and retail development," Executive Director Paul Borek told the City Council Planning and Development Committee on Thursday. As a result of the development, the...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Multinational firms are planning to invest less in China because of market access barriers and slowing growth in the world's second-largest economy, a U.S. business lobby said on Tuesday. China's economy expanded 7.4 percent year-on-year in the January-March quarter, its slowest pace in 18 months. Concerns over market access and slower growth are greater this year than they were in the past, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said...

Trust us. We're no Enron. That's the message in the more than 12,000 annual reports now being distributed to shareholders through the mail and over the Internet. Angst, soul-searching, scurrying about and hurried revisions preceded this latest batch. Even though it was too late for many firms to do much more than add a few paragraphs professing their trustworthiness, they did the best they could. "At the last minute, we added four pages to our annual report due to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell nearly 10 percent from 2005 to 2012, more than halfway toward the United States' 2020 target pledged at United Nations climate talks, according to the latest national emissions inventory. The report showed that emissions dropped 3.4 percent from 2012 to 2011, mostly due to a decrease in energy consumption and fuel switching from coal to natural gas. The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday published the...

The city of Des Plaines and its finance director recently accepted an award for financial reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada. The Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting was awarded last week in recognition of the city's comprehensive annual financial report, Des Plaines announced in a release. According to officials, it is the highest form of recognition that can be received in governmental accounting...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The estimated acquisition cost of Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jet program dropped $11.5 billion over the past year, the congressional Government Accountability Office reported Monday in its annual report on U.S. arms programs. The congressional watchdog agency said it now estimates the Pentagon will spend $332.3 billion over coming decades to develop the new radar-evading F-35 jet and buy a total of 2,457 aircraft, about 3.3 percent...